Boko Haram: UN wants help for displaced people

The United Nations, Chad, Niger and Cameroon appealed

 on Friday for help for millions of people in the Lake Chad

 Basin region forced to flee the violence of Boko Haram

 and hit with repeated droughts and floods that have

 brought malnutrition and disease.

But while the militants operate out of Nigeria and UN aid

 chief, Stephen O’Brien, said that is where most people have 

been displaced by their attacks, Nigeria did not send anyone to the event.

United States and European Union diplomats said they 

were disappointed that Nigeria did not attend the event 

chaired by O’Brien on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The Nigerian UN mission was not immediately available to comment on its absence.

A regional offensive by Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon 

earlier this year drove Boko Haram from much 

of the territory it held in northern Nigeria. But the militants 

have since struck back with a renewed wave of deadly raids and suicide bombings.

“These (displaced) families are being used as ammunition 

because it is the children that are used as bombers in markets

 and in train stations,” Reuters quoted Chad’s Foreign Minister, 

Moussa Faki Mahamat, as saying on the matter.

“Trade is virtually wiped out in this area.”

Several UN diplomats at the event warned that the aid 

emergency in Lake Chad Basin risked being forgotten 

amid other humanitarian crises in Syria, Yemen and South Sudan.

Niger Prime Minister, Brigi Rafini, said the region was in the midst of a “genuine disaster.”

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